We are proud as an organization to operate and maintain the Galvez Garden, a community garden located in St. Roch. Established in 2021, the Galvez Garden has come a long way and we’re happy to report that it is flourishing! All of the hard work from the last year and resulting improvements in our garden are really impressive. Let’s take a closer look at how much we’ve grown since the start of the year!
Vegetable Garden
Since being awarded the *Cultivating the Community Garden Award, we have successfully grown and shared harvests of peppers, tomatoes, okra, onions, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, berries and countless herbs. We’ve shared seeds and starter plants for others to grow their own and we have many more plants that we will share with our community as we continue to grow throughout the summer.
The Muscadine grapes are climbing on the trellis quite nicely. Even though it’s in its first year, they are already bearing fruit.
The watermelon bed is looking great and we plan harvest next week.
We’re going to try and grow pumpkins next, with hopes they’ll be ripe right about the time our zucchini is ready to be harvested.
*As a result of a cooperative partnership between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)- Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Community Resources Connection (CRC), Inc. the NOLA Artist Incubator was able to receive the $10,000 grant. Grant funding was to be used for the purchase of materials and supplies needed to establish new community gardens or extend existing gardens to feed more people. This grant supports communities with addressing food insecurities.
Community Compost Collections
In our second year in partnership with Compost NOW, we are continuing to offer free composting to the community on Sundays from 10:00-1:00. With so many other gardens closing their doors over the summer, we are putting out three bins weekly to accommodate the uptake of visitors. That’s alright with us because with our six in bed worm compost bins, we have capacity to divert that much more waste from our landfills. Our compost is great and our well fed worms provide additional natural nutrients to aid in our vegetable production.
Learn more about Compost NOW at the link below!
Master Gardener Volunteers
In other great news, we are delighted to report that we have four new volunteers from the 2023 Louisiana Master Gardener class! Right now we host volunteers on Friday and Sunday mornings. An AmeriCorps member from Recirculating Farms has been joining us on Sundays to assist with compost collections and on Fridays we have volunteers show up at 8:00 a.m. and we work until the heats comes on. If you’re interested in learning more about volunteering, we’d love to have you! As an approved LSUAg Louisiana Master Gardener project site, the Galvez Garden has been working closely with the Master Gardeners of Greater New Orleans (MGGNO) . We are grateful to be a featured project site on their webpage and for the resulting volunteers. Learn more about them and see the garden featured at the link below
Native Plant Initiative
The Native plants we planted at the start of the year are growing and thriving. We are pleased that with the support from Keep Louisiana Beautiful Beautification Award, our open area “pocket park” of Galvez Garden is well maintained and much more intentional and reflective of permaculture practices. The native plants not only add beauty but also attract pollinators and require less maintenance and water than annuals and nonnative species.
Wrapping Up
In closing, a lot of work goes into caring for a community garden, but with it comes many rewards. We are proud to be able to work this land through our partnership with I Dig It, LLC., the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) and the Growing Green Program. Through the Galvez Garden we are committed to providing a safe green space that gives back to the surrounding community in a meaningful way. We are so grateful for our collaborating organizations and supporters that we’ve made that have helped make this possible! We hosted countless community events in this magical place and too many more interactions to feature, and we’ve had blast while doing it! Be it growing food to address food insecurity, providing a multigenerational safe place to learn about sustainable urban agriculture, or creating a way for community members to divert waste from landfills by dropping off frozen food scraps, the Galvez Garden has proved to be a tremendous asset to our community. We are proud to serve our city by supporting the garden. Until our next update, our organization looks forward to continuing to grow and provide through this very, very special place.
NOLA Artist Incubator 